Lurker > red sox 777

Maniac64 posted...

HaRRicH posted...

6/21/2018
TWITTER - Contemptor (analysis and criticism of media, pop culture, and politics)

Fox News' Rachel Campos-Duffy: "I spoke to some African-Americans who say, 'Gosh, the conditions of the detention centers are better than some of the projects that I grew up in.'"

*VIDEO OF CLIP*

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheContemptor/status/1009995576241545217

So Fox thinks we should pump money into improving the inner city?

I think they would rather cut funding to force everyone to move out of inner cities. On the assumption that people will have somewhere else to go.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Many conservatives are small government in that they want to reduce taxes and spending. Many of them are totally fine with big governement from a civil liberties perspective (and vice versa for liberals).

Reduce taxes yes, spending, no. They've done nothing but increase spending unless the Democrats are in power.
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Kenri posted...

Suprak the Stud posted...

I guess what specific examples have you found of him that you believe to be pandering only to get votes? I'm not saying your wrong, it jus never struck me as true (or more true than in regards to other politicians) for Doug Jones.

I'm not exactly disparaging him, just to clarify. But the whole article came off to me as disingenuous, often intellectually dishonest, pandering, since he has to try to appeal to so many groups with different, often opposed, interests. I'm not sure how else you maintain a coalition like that, but at least be a little self-aware, ya know?

He doesn't have to see it as pandering. If he believes in the positions he takes, and he thinks there is broad support for those positions, then he wouldn't think of himself as pandering. If he believed that his voters were deeply divided into different camps, then he wouldn't be able to appeal to different camps without being dishonest, but then, I suspect, he wouldn't have won his election either, even against Roy Moore.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Suprak the Stud posted...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/doug-jones-thinks-hes-supposed-to-be-here/

Heres what I think is a really good article on Doug Jones.

Fantastic read. I'm not holding my breath about his chances in 2020 (it sucks he wasn't up again either this year or 2022), but he sounds like an incredibly qualified individual and I really appreciate his approach to moderation.

Yeah, sadly, he is probably more qualified than even most other Democrats, but being from Alabama (particularly in a presidential election year) against a non-pedophile candidate, he's doomed. He might keep it within like 10 percentage points, maybe, but he has zero shot of holding on to his seat.

The thing I found particularly crazy was "I would've done even better if it wasn't for the scandal!" I don't know if he genuinely believes that, but that's banana cuckoo nutso crazy talk.

Trump also said repeatedly that if we used the popular vote, he would have campaigned in California and New York and won them.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I heard about the tax evasion. As a tax accountant myself (in the US)... everyone hides a few bucks from Uncle Sam. Wouldn't stop supporting the guy just for that.

It seems like pretty much every top soccer player in Spain was convicted of the same thing. Sounds like Barcelona and Real Madrid were giving some bad legal advice a few years ago.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

Ashethan posted...

I've found that smart is a very relative term.

well, take muffin, for instance. say what you will about him but he's not dumb. he went from supporting trump for fun because "LOLZ IT MAKES TEH LIBERALS CRY" to passionately defending every single thing trump does. it was pretty fascinating to see him transform into a diehard trump supporter in the freedom topic.

Muffin's had changing political views for years though. I'm still holding out for my prediction that at some point he will support Stalinism.
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It's not about Trump, it's about them. They demand respect for Trump, because he speaks for them. It doesn't mean they like him, but as long as he holds the position of voice of the conservative people, conservatives insist that he be respected to respect them.

Also, the country is prosperous. The unemployment rate hasn't been so low in many years. We're starting to get the tariffs Trump promised to reduce the trade deficits. There's lots to be happy about.
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The exit polls had people who disliked both Trump and Clinton going for Trump at around 70/30 IIRC. People who liked Clinton but not Trump and people who liked Trump but not Clinton unsurprisingly went almost 100% for the one they liked. People who liked both, I forget who won, but as these were the 2 least favorably viewed candidates ever, there weren't many of those.
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As for Clinton, she got the issue frame she wanted and worked for (let's compare how bad the candidates are).....it just wasn't a good frame for her. Where she lost the election is that people who disliked both Trump and Clinton voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
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I haven't noticed non-Americans being stupid about American politics. I'm talking about people who support US Democrats (and not all of them, obviously).

Bernie did a good job of refusing to accept the issue framing others have tried to impose on him. He consistently brought the conversation back to wealth inequality, no matter where the interviewer tried to take things. He was accused by some of being one-dimensional, but at least people knew what he stood for.

Romney failed to do this, more or less accepting the frame of discussion put forward by the media and Obama (what is the government going to do for X group?. And he couldn't win a debate on that ground. He never established what he stood for.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

regarding the "don't feed the troll" thing, from what i understand red sox's position is that democratic politicians should stop responding to trump's tweets. that's not a terrible position to have*, but now i do wonder why keeps attacking us for criticizing trump's tweets. as far as i know we have nobody working for the democratic party posting here (karma hunter doesn't post anymore, so...).

* an objection i do have to this position is that trump's tweets are kind of impossible to ignore - they're news because trump is the president of the US. i just now realized that when i asked red sox "should democrats not comment when asked about the tweets?" he never answered, instead dodging the question by saying that they should "focus on creating news themselves." not sure how that would work - if an interviewer asks a democrat for commentary on a trump tweet, should they start rambling about policy proposals?

Liberals represent the Democratic Party and they absolutely have an impact on public opinion, even if they aren't politicians. And yeah, they should pivot away from Trump's framing of the issues onto their own. "Yes, the president continues to try to divide the country with inflammatory tweets, but let's talk about what really matters."
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Not every single thing he does is indefensible, but when is IS doing indefensible s*** we shouldn't have to categorically prove all his slight wrongs before we can decry his major wrongs.

That's exactly what I'm arguing. I'm telling Democrats to stop getting aggravated by all the slight wrongs, because it is hurting their ability to fight against the big ones. If people haven't figured it out by now, let me say what should be obvious: Trump does not care about liberals criticizing him. He does not care one iota and you won't influence him to do anything by criticizing him. So - if you are as upset about Trump's actions as you claim to be - stop feeding the troll.
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So the way to evaluate whether a statement is a lie or not under my definition has nothing to do with finding actual people and deciding if they are reasonable and seeing if they believe the statement. You just imagine a reasonable person acting in a reasonable way and see if you can imagine a way in which they could be deceived. And if you can, then you conclude the statement is a lie.

And I'm obviously not saying that Trump doesn't lie. He does, but a large portion of his factually false statements fall more into the puffery category than lying, in my eyes. It's sort of clever, actually, because it makes it easier for him to make outright lies for purposes of deception and having people not catch it because they think it's more puffery.

It's like Democrats are the boy tending the sheep, and Trump is the wolf, but Trump pretends to be a large dog a lot, and approaches the sheep every day. The boy has poor eyesight and cries wolf to the townspeople, and after this happens every day for a while they stop coming. Only it actually is a wolf, that was just dressing up as a large dog, and after the townspeople stop coming it sheds the costume and comes and eats the sheep.
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If you point to a person and ask me, is this person reasonable, my answer is, I don't know. Now tell me that they don't believe a false Trump statement, and my answer is still, I don't know. But tell me that they do believe a false Trump statement, and my answer becomes, no, that person is not reasonable. You see what I'm saying?

The problem with your proposed method of finding a counterexample is that I can't identify whether a given person is reasonable or not. Even if we take the 80% number at face value, it's not possible to tell whether any given person is in the 80% or the 20%. If you wanted me to go through the 320 million people in the country and identify each as reasonable or not, maybe I could do this with infinite time and resources, but even if I did, and you found someone I called reasonable who believed false Trump statements, that still wouldn't disprove the definition - it would just mean that my determination of the person's reasonableness was wrong!

So my definition is unfalsifiable because it is not possible for there to be any counterexamples. That's because it is not a statement of fact. You can evaluate definitions for their usefulness and their resonance, but not for their truth or falsity.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

How many hardcore Trump supporters have you talked to, Red Sox? Im in a Right Wing Facebook group with over 10,000 members, and even posting the most blatant lies I get dozens of comments calling it fake news.

They call blatant lies fake news?
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Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

I said "the majority of Trump supporters"

You said 80% of America. I only need to find one person out of that to beat your "if a reasonable person can be deceived" metric, which is already much an incredibly strict definition of what constitutes a lie (since, again, it's a definition that somehow removes the liar from the equation entirely).

That's not really the right way to evaluate that one. If a person is deceived, it means they aren't being reasonable (at least for that moment). If you find my definition of what is a lie to be unfalsifiable, that's because it is. It's a definition. It is not a statement of fact. By its nature it is not falsifiable.

The 80% figure is a statement of fact and is testable. But it's a distinct statement from the definition, and was not made with any precision.

My definition is actually less strict than the traditional definition of a lie, which I would think goes something like, "a false statement made with the intent to deceive." If something won't deceive a reasonable person, then it's fairly hard for it to be made with any intent to deceive, whereas it's easy to see how a statement that might deceive a reasonable person might be made without any intent to deceive on the part of the speaker (because he believes it to be true).
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I said "the majority of Trump supporters"
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Kenri posted...

How much of America is reasonable, to you?

The 65% who aren't liberal......

Okay, not really. Let's say 80%? I'm quite sure that the majority of Trump supporters don't believe his "lies."
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I guess my bar is that something is a lie if a reasonable person could be deceived.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

It's as if they are picking people who sound conservative and controversial, without really evaluating their skill as journalists.

You sure you're still arguing against my position?

I mean replace "journalist" with "politician" and look at the current state of the Republican party and its recent nominees at various levels.

I'm not sure that I'm arguing against your position. I don't think we really disagree. As you say, my focus is mainly on elections. I am sore at the Democratic Party in general for not thinking about elections more, because they are not doing their job to put a check on the Republican Party on a bunch of things where I want them to.

And yeah, the Republican Party had a big problem with this recently. That's why all their people lost to Donald Trump. But the GOP quickly adjusted, possibly helped by its primary system in which most states are winner-take-all and first past the post, and there are no superdelegates.
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Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Because puffery is not the worst thing in the world. There are many things in the world much worse than puffery. If you are furious about puffery, it stands to reason that you would be angry about all the things worse than puffery.

first of all stop saying puffery

second of all i'm not sure you actually know what puffery means?

third of all just call it lying

Puffing puffins puffed that they were the best puffers in the whole world, until they watched Fox News and saw Donald Trump puff. Here's two examples of puffery:

"This is the best microwave you'll ever find. It heats the most delicious leftovers in the world."
"We are going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it."

Here's two examples of lying:

"This car passed its emissions inspection two weeks ago."
"When I said open borders, I was talking about energy."
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

If the NYT wants to reach out to conservatives, they need to hire actual conservatives who know their audience.

They did.

And had to immediately fire them when anyone else did even the most trifling look into their past statements.

Also, you seem to be presenting a problem to which I don't see a solution. The media's purpose isn't (or shouldn't) be to report what its audience wants to hear but the truth.

If they can't hire conservatives who don't have a history of hugely embarrassing public statements, that's a sign that they don't have any conservatives among the editors or whoever is doing the hiring. It's as if they are picking people who sound conservative and controversial, without really evaluating their skill as journalists. Think about it from the perspective of a conservative reader. The NYT finally hires a conservative.....and it turns out he supported restoring slavery? That demonstrates what they think of me! That does not help the NYT's credibility, and the only advice I can give is, get some more conservatives high up in the editorial staff.

I agree that the media's purpose is to report the truth. But it can't credibly do that if the perception is that it is biased and trying to cover that up. This isn't impossible - the Associated Press and Reuters have a good reputation because they stick to the facts. Fox News and MSNBC don't have good reputations but they are still doing better than the NYT and CNN because they display their bias openly and proudly, which allows viewers to fairly easily adjust for the bias. The Wall Street Journal is the very rare publication that both editorializes AND is seen as relatively unbiased by both sides.
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You could say, that the focus on the emails betrays a lack of understanding of why people hate Hillary so much. The emails are just one reason among many, and not a big reason. I don't think Trump even spent much time attacking Hillary on the negligence issue regarding using a private server. He attacked her by attacking the cover-up and by building the suggestion that maybe there was something really embarrassing within the emails like promises to big banks.

If the NYT wants to reach out to conservatives, they need to hire actual conservatives who know their audience. Running a bazillion pieces on Clinton emails won't cut it.
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Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Because when liberals are outraged every single day, what is normalized is the idea that liberals will be outraged at Trump no matter what.

Is this your position or someone else's?

Mine.

Okay, well it makes no sense. Why does liberals being upset at lying imply that liberals will be upset no matter what, to you?

Because puffery is not the worst thing in the world. There are many things in the world much worse than puffery. If you are furious about puffery, it stands to reason that you would be angry about all the things worse than puffery.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Now, I don't really care about influencing those people one way or the other, but other people like the New York Times, CNN, etc. persist in trying to influence the very people with whom they have no credibility.

ironically i agree with you a bit here

just not in the way you mean

The NYT has notoriously been trying to appeal to Trump voters to downright boggling levels. The mainstream media in general has increasingly been shutting out Democratic voices for Republican ones. Their obsession with feeling they have to treat everything "equally" no matter how absurd one side/position was. So affording equal time and weight even when it is absurd to do so. Such as equating Clinton's E-Mail scandal with everything Trump did.

And none of that works. None of that actually improves their credibility with the right half of the American public. It's also pretty transparent, so if anything, it makes them even less trusted (They're only pretending to be fair! They're trying to make it seem like the emails is the worst thing Hillary is guilty of, while they say Trump did all these horrible things. If they were fair, they'd dig up all of Hillary's big crimes!)
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xp1337 posted...

I dunno, I think you can be outraged at both the policy and his cowardly attempts to have it both ways by trying to pin the blame on the Democrats.

There's a reason I explicitly stated I didn't want to get into the discussion you had the other day with a bunch of people about his Germany crime statistic lie:

1. It was happening concurrently with the audio coming out and that issue was immeasurably more important to me.
2. It just didn't seem worth an argument over. Yes, he is lying about it. Yes, it further evidence in the "he's a racist" pile. Neither of those things was new information. Things to cite in future discussions regarding that, sure.
3. tbqh i found your position in that argument untenable

Your reaction to that tweet sounds eminently reasonable. Attacking that tweet can only help Trump. Among Trump statements, it is quite innocuous in that there is an entirely plausible way to read it which would render it as not a lie at all, just imprecise (you can disagree about that if you want, I really don't want to argue about it). Many Trump statements are ridiculous on their face and some of his actions are terrifying. Unlike the statements, the actions are not always bad or outrageous, and the ones that are should be targeted.

If there were more liberals who publicly condemned the travel ban and the separation policy, while talking about how tariffs, say, might be good, they'd get a lot more attention from the public. Now, if you are someone who disagrees with Trump on every single action - and you would even if a different person had implemented the same policies - guess what? You are very very far from the center American voter. If you want to win, the best thing you can do is keep quiet and let others do the talking who can do a better job of appealing to swing voters.
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Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Because when liberals are outraged every single day, what is normalized is the idea that liberals will be outraged at Trump no matter what.

Is this your position or someone else's?

Mine.
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A corollary to this is that people who lack credibility with a group of people shouldn't be the ones presenting a case to those people. I am fairly confident there are a couple people here who evidently really dislike me who I could influence to attack basically any position, no matter what it was. All I would have to do is take that position and make a trolly argument supporting it.

Now, I don't really care about influencing those people one way or the other, but other people like the New York Times, CNN, etc. persist in trying to influence the very people with whom they have no credibility. The result is that they do influence the people they are trying to influence - to vote the opposite of what they wanted. With every "calling out" of Trump's minor lies or puffery, he gets stronger and stronger.

If Democrats actually take back the House this Fall, I'll admit that I'm wrong on this, or at least that this isn't as big a factor as I think currently. If Republicans win again, I hope that eventually Democrats will reconsider their strategy before we have to suffer the worst things about one-party rule.
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Outrage is better directed at bad actions, like this policy of separating children from their parents. Getting outraged over each and every one of Trump's lies (I'm not saying you do this, but there is lots of anger directed at practically all of Trump's daily lies), is exactly what normalizes awful policies when they happen. Because when liberals are outraged every single day, what is normalized is the idea that liberals will be outraged at Trump no matter what.
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MalcolmMasher posted...

They continue to beg Republican Congressmen for help and make appeals to their better natures, over and over and over, even though this never ever works. In between crises, they make zero effort to reach out to voters who might vote for them if Democrats actually tried to win their votes instead of writing them off as deplorable.

So, you think that Democrats have too high an opinion of Republican congressmen, too low an opinion of Republican voters?

Yes, basically. It's not necessarily that they have too high an opinion of Republican congressmen, it's more that they don't understand what Republican congressmen see their job as, which is to be zealous attack dogs for their constituents. It does no good to treat with the attack dog; deal with its owner and you might get better results.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Honestly, I find the attitude of a lot of Democrats to bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge what Republicans are doing to be quite distressing.

Pretty sure Democrats acknowledge it.

CHIP, DACA, now this.

And they immediately folded on DACA. Or rather, first they raised the stakes by starting a government shutdown and then they folded, by ending before the start of work on Monday morning without winning any concessions from Republicans. That's worse than just folding to start with.

I think Trump lying is similar. If you react the same way to the 1000th lie as you do to the first, with surprise and outrage, is that really acknowledging that he's a liar? No! If you really accepted that he is a liar, the 1000th lie would be a big nothingburger.
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Honestly, I find the attitude of a lot of Democrats to bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge what Republicans are doing to be quite distressing. They continue to beg Republican Congressmen for help and make appeals to their better natures, over and over and over, even though this never ever works. In between crises, they make zero effort to reach out to voters who might vote for them if Democrats actually tried to win their votes instead of writing them off as deplorable. Then, come the next crisis engineered by Republicans, it's more burying their heads in the sand and screaming loudly about how horrible things are.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

And not all of my posts are going to be terribly deep. Am I, alone, required to make exclusively deep posts?

Sorry, meant to put this in the last post but I'm dumb.

No, but that was a total drive-by. It wasn't relevant to the topic at all, it was just shoe-horning in something crazy that you have to know would grate with most of the topic!

Is it more crazy than Republicans demanding that Obamacare be repealed in order for them to not shut down the government? Or Republicans sending Senator Enzi to give a one-hour rambling speech, mostly about his family and personal life, in support for their healthcare bill, while refusing to allow any questions, before voting on it about an hour after the text was released?

Yes, actually.

Honestly, I feel like I'd be justified in leaving my response at that, but if you insist - In your case, the issues would be entirely unrelated and would be bringing in yet another unpopular position into the mix (while distressingly support for the Mueller Investigation has declined over time a majority of Americans still support it.) And there's just no way to gaslight that the two are connected. At least with the ACA and a government shutdown you could try, "The ACA is bankrupting the country!!!!"

and while the latter was downright insane it was, at least, a standalone issue: ACA repeal.

You know perfectly well there was no real connection between Obamacare repeal and the government shutdown. And so did the Republicans, and pretty much all of their voters. That excuse is only slightly better than Trump's excuse that the law forces him to separate children from their parents. And this is 5 years later, so Republicans are more brazen and open about their negotiating strategy now. They haven't proposed firing Mueller in exchange for releasing the children yet, but would it really surprise you if they did? How about after 2 more years of pushing the envelope?
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

And not all of my posts are going to be terribly deep. Am I, alone, required to make exclusively deep posts?

Sorry, meant to put this in the last post but I'm dumb.

No, but that was a total drive-by. It wasn't relevant to the topic at all, it was just shoe-horning in something crazy that you have to know would grate with most of the topic!

Is it more crazy than Republicans demanding that Obamacare be repealed in order for them to not shut down the government? Or Republicans sending Senator Enzi to give a one-hour rambling speech, mostly about his family and personal life, in support for their healthcare bill, while refusing to allow any questions, before voting on it about an hour after the text was released?
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Edit: Also, Wikipedia says Fitzgerald was appointed under 28 CFR 600. Is there reason I shouldn't believe this?

Wikipedia also says it wasn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_prosecutor#Legal_authority

skip down to the last paragraph

Edit: If you follow the citation it goes to Comey (it's all connected!!)'s letter as acting AG and he does not cite 28 CFR 600 in it while citing other sections.

Okay, it seems Wikipedia is not always reliable, since different pages contradict each other, but I believe yours is right, as they linked to the letters authorizing Fitzgerald's appointment. This is, however, moot, because Rosenstein's appointment of Mueller specifically references 28 CFR 600:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/967231/download
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Might be unconstitutional, but you can't argue that such a statute would be unconstitutional without admitting that Trump has the absolute right and power to fire Mueller. So it may not really matter.

And not all of my posts are going to be terribly deep. Am I, alone, required to make exclusively deep posts?
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Also, federal regulations are authorized by statute - Congress assigns the power to make regulations to the executive branch.

Edit: Also, Wikipedia says Fitzgerald was appointed under 28 CFR 600. Is there reason I shouldn't believe this?
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

There has to be, or else Mueller would have no legal authority to do anything. Ah, found it:

The AG has inherent authority to appoint a special counsel and the existence of that law does not preclude that.

See: Fitzgerald in 2003 who was specifically appointed not under 28 CFR 600. (There's probably a less awkward way to phrase that but you get it, right?)

Edit: those are also DOJ regulations not statutory

Any inherent authority the AG has comes from the President. So even if the president's law enforcement authority is the source of Mueller's authority, and Congress can't fire him, they can pass legislation regulating it and/or giving Trump cover to fire him.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

They could repeal the special counsel law then, to fire him indirectly.

The provisions relating to Special Counsels implemented post-Watergate has been expired since 1999.

try again

I thought that was the independent counsel law? There's obvious some legal authority for the special counsel, and it's not directly from the Constitution as there's no mention of any special counsel in there.

If you're not referring to the independent counsel provisions (itself part of a larger law) then I don't know what you're referring to. Not that said provisions are even germane to this situation

There's no federal law governing special counsels to my knowledge.

There has to be, or else Mueller would have no legal authority to do anything. Ah, found it:

28 CFR 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel.
The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted and -

(a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and

(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.

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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

They could repeal the special counsel law then, to fire him indirectly.

The provisions relating to Special Counsels implemented post-Watergate has been expired since 1999.

try again

I thought that was the independent counsel law? There's obvious some legal authority for the special counsel, and it's not directly from the Constitution as there's no mention of any special counsel in there.
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They could repeal the special counsel law then, to fire him indirectly.
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I wonder what would happen if they tucked in a provision that fire Robert Mueller.
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For me, putting children in cages as hostages is going too far. If the GOP offers to stop it in return for a 1% cut to the marginal tax rate, Democrats might possibly do it. But if they do it, the GOP will be even more brazen next time, knowing that all they need to get what they want is hostages. This may result in the end of the Democratic Party, but on the balance it would be bad for the country.
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But yeah, realistically, Republicans are doing what they always do - extracting their pound of flesh. They just don't do things without getting some advantage for it.
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xp1337 posted...

So 12 GOP Senators sent a letter to Sessions asking him to stop the separation policy "until Congress works out a solution."

If those 12 (or even 11 since one of them is McCain) joined the Dem caucus (49) on Feinstein's bill to end it they'd have 60 right there.

but sure send a letter instead

Like I said before, it's going to be infuriating when they try and use this as a political hostage to pass additional things.

They would have to get the bill on calendar for a vote on the floor I think, since they are going against the majority leader. Which they could do, but it might require the nuclear option? I know the House lets a majority bring up a bill against the Speaker's wishes, but not sure what the Senate procedure is.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Kenri posted...

Nah but he'd have different human rights abuses to account for (not to mention that, as he's clearly demonstrated lately, he wouldn't oppose children being put into camps).

He's only silent because Trump has proven time and again he DEMANDS loyalty from his subordinates, and Pence is the kind of party man to the shut up and color.

Pence is the one person in the administration who Trump cannot fire. That's because, legally, he was elected by the Electoral College. He might still submit to Trump's demands, but Trump can't get rid of him like he can the rest.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I honestly think with Pence's religious background, and the fact that like every religious group out there is saying "yo this sucks", that he wouldn't stand for it if he wasn't whipped by Trump.

Not every religious group. I hear mostly silence from evangelicals. The appeal to law and order is very very strong for many people.
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They can expel him from the membership and (I think) deny him access to communion/the Eucharist, which is called excommunication. That's a really big deal in the Catholic Church, at least for people who believe the Catholic Church is the only one that leads to salvation, but it's not as big a deal for Protestants as Sessions would be able to find another Protestant church that would welcome him.
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Pence is lawful neutral, and I would never underestimate the capacity of a lawful neutral person to do evil. It's greator even than a lawful evil person, because others are more likely to rein in someone who appears evil.
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Pence doesn't have Trump's daring or keen sense of what he can get away with. But his vision for the country is much worse.
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